Peace

Peace

Peace

Peace

Peace

Peace

After Congress finally approved the funds–minus the Wilmot
Proviso–to purchase the western territories. Polk chose State Department
clerk Nicholas Trist to deliver an offer of three million dollars as
a downpayment for California and New Mexico to the Mexican government.
Trist had no authority to sign a treaty but was merely meant to
make the offer. When Trist arrived on May 6, the army commanded
by Winfield Scott was closing in on Mexico City, but Scott refused
to allow the clerk to talk with the Mexican government, feeling
that such negotiations were his alone. After a long exchange of
bitter letters back and forth, the two men resolved their differences
after Trist fell ill and the General sent him a jar of marmalade!
They worked well together from that point on. Scott, though, realized
that Trist was his ticket to the Whig nomination–and in order to
win the nomination, he would have to become a bigger hero than
Taylor.

Polk received no word of Scott and Trist's joint secret
actions until September 14. Scott had brought the army right up
to the gates of Mexico City and then sent Trist in to negotiate.
Polk angrily ordered Scott to lift the truce and attack and he
recalled Trist. On that same day, though, Scott took Mexico City.
Over the coming weeks, Polk repeatedly recalled Trist and later
recalled Scott as well. In his third message to Congress, on December
7, 1847, Polk outlined his plan to buy California and New Mexico
from Mexico to prevent it from falling into European hands. Congress
balked, and a House resolution condemned the president and the
war.

On February 19, a special messenger arrived with the treaty
that Trist had signed with Mexico. For fifteen million dollars,
the U.S. received almost all of the land originally demanded. Although
he disliked Trist, the treaty was acceptable and Polk announced
his support. On March 10, Congress ratified the peace treaty.

Polk's goal of "Manifest Destiny" had been achieved. He
had expanded the U.S. all the way to the Pacific Ocean. He would always
be remembered as the most expansionist president in American history.
Beyond that, however, he enforced the Monroe Doctrine throughout
his tenure. When, in 1848, it appeared that the Yucatan Peninsula
might become a British colony, Polk iterated the Doctrine and helped
make it a cornerstone of American diplomacy.

As the war ate up most of President Polk's time, he and
his congressional supporters continued work on many of the domestic
proposals Polk favored. His reform of the postal service passed
with relatively little debate. And, after years of legislative
wrangling, Congress finally granted the sub-treasury for which
Martin Van Buren had advocated so many years before.

As for his promises to lower tariffs, Polk supported a
tariff plan written by his secretary of the treasury, Robert J.
Walker. Polk, as a Democrat, had long opposed any tariffs, whereas
the Whigs favored the protection the tariffs offered. Walker drew
up a new set of tariffs with "protection incident but not the object,"
and with Polk's backing helped secure Western support by pointing
out that the lower tariffs would allow farmers to sell grain overseas.
The passage of the Walker tariff was instrumental in the opening
of free trade with England and in causing the English to open its
markets to U.S. grain.